"Petrol" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a match that I'm keeping." It is a real hardship indeed, and the sight is pitiful of the poilus who cannot light pipe or cigarette but put them away in their pockets and stroll in resignation. By good fortune, Tirloir has his petrol pipe-lighter and it still contains a little spirit. Those who are aware of it gather round him, bringing their pipes packed and cold. There is not even any paper to light, and the flame itself must be used until the remaining spirit in its tiny ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... vast, glimmering plain as far as my eyes could reach. It was a quarter past ten o'clock, and the barograph needle pointed to twelve thousand eight hundred. Up I went and up, my ears concentrated upon the deep purring of my motor, my eyes busy always with the watch, the revolution indicator, the petrol lever, and the oil pump. No wonder aviators are said to be a fearless race. With so many things to think of there is no time to trouble about oneself. About this time I noted how unreliable is the compass when above a certain height ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... fast scouts of the Imperial German Flying Service. He shot down one, when his gun was jammed. He banked over and dived to avoid the attentions of the foremost of his adversaries, but was hit by a chance bullet, his petrol tank was pierced and he suddenly found himself in the midst of noisy ...
— Tam O' The Scoots • Edgar Wallace
... object in his turn, though, for a moment, he philandered with the delightful thought of getting even with Gay by covering her with dust and petrol fumes. Unfortunately, his gallant resistance to this pleasant temptation would never be known, for Gay suddenly and unexpectedly wheeled to the left and put her horse's head to the veld. The swift wheeling movement, with its attendant ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... heavy losses by fire they can also destroy obstacles, weapons, and personnel. Their garrisons are protected against the fire of small arms and from shrapnel bullets, but they are very vulnerable to other forms of artillery fire. Their mobility and radius of action are governed by the amount of petrol carried and by the physical endurance of the crew, but except over deep cuttings, {175} broad streams, swamps, very heavily shelled ground, rocky and mountainous country, or in thick woods they can ...
— Lectures on Land Warfare; A tactical Manual for the Use of Infantry Officers • Anonymous
... make sure that all of them carried a plentiful supply of the necessary petrol, for he realized how difficult it would likely be to secure any of this liquid fuel, since every gallon was being seized for the use of the multitude of lorries and cars employed for transportation purposes by the ...
— The Big Five Motorcycle Boys on the Battle Line - Or, With the Allies in France • Ralph Marlow
... had received the letter got into the machine beside him. The other two climbed into the tonneau. And, as if to make the denouement doubly ridiculous, the road led straight. Nikky, growing extremely cheerful behind his goggles, wondered how much petrol remained ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... money, and I sent down one Hun, and crippled another chap's machine so that he had to turn tail and scoot for home. Then came three other big Gothas that set me to spinning on my head. But after they'd chased me for miles, a leak in my tank let out every drop of petrol; and so the only thing to do was to drop down and make ...
— Air Service Boys Flying for Victory - or, Bombing the Last German Stronghold • Charles Amory Beach
... but whether killed by a chance bullet from a sniper or whether killed deliberately by his fellow-criminal was never revealed. For when the end came Orming had apparently planned a final act of venom. It was known that in the basement a considerable quantity of petrol had been stored. The contents had probably been carefully distributed over the most inflammable materials in the top rooms. The fire broke out, as one witness described it, "almost like an explosion." Orming must have perished in this. The roof blazed up, ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... acting upon his present state of mind, was like pouring petrol on a smouldering fire. So she had gone off with the fellow, had spent the night with him somewhere! The thing was true; there was no good trying to shut one's eyes to it any longer. A dozen tiny incidents recurred to him, each magnified a hundredfold, together ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... with coffee and flattery—as one fills a motor car with petrol and oil—but asked him no questions until we were safely in Cary's study and Mrs. Cary had gone about her household duties. "Your good lady," remarked Dawson to Cary, "is as little curious as any woman I have met, and we will leave her at that if you don't mind. The best thing ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... down, as seamen sometimes do, at a vivid little Newfoundland Flapper in a sunset-coloured jumper bodice, New York cut skirt, white stockings and white canvas boots. The Flapper looked up from her seat in the stern of her "gas" launch (gasolene equals petrol), and smiled back, as is the Flapper habit, and the seaman promptly opened conversation by asking if the Flapper had ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... including again palatial cinemas and concerts, all of which results in excellent behavior and the best of relations between the British soldier and the French inhabitants. At the docks armies of laborers and lines of ships discharging men, horses, timber, rations, fodder, coal, coke, petrol, and the same at the storehouses ...
— The War on All Fronts: England's Effort - Letters to an American Friend • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... difficulties he had to overcome were enormous. On one occasion he congratulated himself because one of his steam-cylinders was only three-eighths of an inch out of truth in the bore. Nowadays a good firm would reject a cylinder 1/500 of an inch out of truth; and in small petrol-engines 1/5000 of an inch is sometimes the ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams
... her chauffeur had been mobilized and there was no petrol. She was dressed for dinner, but there was no time to change. She threw on a cloak and thinking of nothing but her children went off with the Mayor in hot haste to catch the train. From that moment on for five or six days, during which time she never took off her high-heeled slippers ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... in the centre by three tree-trunks. Four wooden frames, upon which was stretched some wire-netting, served as bedsteads; in a corner stood a bucket-fire, the fumes and smoke going up an improvised chimney of petrol tins. In the centre was a rough table. One corner of it was kept up by a couple of boxes; other ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... to 'ave kept the engine runnin' all this time,' said Holford sternly. 'I'll 'ave to account for the expenditure of petrol. It exceeds the mileage indicated, ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... example, are almost entirely due to the invasion of medical research by the chemist; our naval development to the supersession of the sailor by the engineer; we sweep away the coachman with the railway, beat the suburban line with the electric tramway, and attack that again with the petrol omnibus, oust brick and stonework in substantial fabrics by steel frames, replace the skilled maker of woodcuts by a photographer, and so on through the whole range of our activities. Change of function, arrest of specialisation ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... you could have said would have altered my determination, so you need never think that, Sandy boy. I know your first impulse will be to put the 'stink-pot' along at forty miles an hour in wild pursuit of me. But you can spare your petrol. Be very sure that even if you overtook me, I shouldn't ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... motor car, sir, and it's broken down, and he wondered if you'd lend him a little petrol. He told me to say how very sorry he was ...
— Second Plays • A. A. Milne
... Yellow-bellied ore-flats and Ungava petrol-tanks punted down leisurely out of the north, like strings of unfrightened wild duck. It does not pay to "fly" minerals and oil a mile farther than is necessary; but the risks of transhipping to submersibles ...
— Actions and Reactions • Rudyard Kipling
... lord had been, by comparison, a coarse fellow; he had merely lived in the largest kind of farm-house after the fashion of the largest kind of farmer. He drank wine when he could, but he was quite ready to drink ale; and science had not yet smoothed his paths with petrol. At a time later than this, one of the greatest ladies of England writes to her husband that she cannot come to him because her carriage horses are pulling the plough. In the true Middle Ages the greatest men were even more rudely hampered, but in the time of Henry VIII. the transformation ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton
... power was derived from a combination of petrol and pulverised smokeless coal, treated with liquid oxygen, which made combustion practically perfect. There was no boilers or furnaces, only combustion chambers, and this fact made the carrying of the great weight of armour under the waterline ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith
... frame's twisted. The petrol has given out: thats what brought us down. And how can we get a clear run to start with among ...
— Misalliance • George Bernard Shaw
... about motor-cars. As far as the cars went he had developed into an incurable motor-maniac. He was never tired of talking about carburetters, and tyres, and petrol, and garages and gear. He dreamed of these things at night. Every day he invented some extraordinary contrivance for increasing speed and lessening friction. He knew all that was to be known about the different kinds ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... Mavis to the door, which the fat butler held open, she heard the snorting of a motor; the next minute, a superb car, driven by Lowther, pulled up before the front door. Mavis had never before been in a petrol-propelled carriage (automobiles were then coming into use); she looked forward to her ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... Winnington's own labourers who had outstripped the rest. "They're asking for you to come! They've telephoned to Latchford for the engines, and to Brownmouth and Wanchester too. They say it's burning like tow—there must be petrol in it, or summat. It's the women they say!—spite of Mr. ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the workshop. From left to right: Hodgeman, Hunter, Lasebon, Correll, and Hannam. The petrol engine part of the ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... dear Major!" said he. "Neutralize the currents delivered by the magnetos of hostile planes to their spark-plugs, and you transform the most powerful engines into inert matter. Not all the finely adjusted mechanism in the world, nor the best of petrol, nor yet the most perfect skill is worth that," with a snap of the strong fingers, "when ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... deserves well of his country in war time. With the Pessiphone there is now absolutely no excuse for cheerfulness. It is the marvel of the age, and has very fittingly been described as worth a guinea a groan. With one pint of petrol the Pessiphone will disseminate more depression throughout the household in ten minutes than could be accomplished in a day by thirty ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 12, 1916 • Various
... Christina doing nothing," compromised Anonyma. "And petrol isn't so bad as it will be. And it's a beautiful time of year. And you are not strong yet, really. And we ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson
... strange beings who have been evolved by the age of petrol, an automaton compounded, seemingly, of steel springs and leather. He had long ago lost the art of speech, having cultivated delicacy of hearing and quickness of sight at the expense of all other human faculties. The old-time coachman possessed a certain fluent ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... myself, with the result that a week later I was on my way to Canada. In a year I was back again, and, after some months of semi-starvation in London, I managed to obtain a job in a motor factory. I was then entirely in my element. During two years I learned the mechanism of the various petrol-driven cars, until I became classed as an ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux
... Carlisle. I may have seen him," Sir S. replied. "But say nothing to Mrs. James about this conversation of ours. Some time, perhaps, I may tell you why. If not, it's not worth remembering. And now, I see she's got everything ready, and is waiting for us. So is Vedder. The car's had a good drink of petrol, and we can be off—for a sight of Carlyle's country. Will that bore you?" He looked at me almost anxiously, as if something depended on ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... said doggedly. "Mr. Kent isn't for bringing Miss Molly back again. They'd their luggage along wi' 'em in the car, and Mr. Kent, he stopped at the 'Cliff' to have the tank filled up and took a matter of another half-dozen cans o' petrol with 'im." ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... to find where the wire was cut, and then got Dick. But I got away, and I managed to stay fairly close to them. I followed them when they left Dick in a little stone house, as a prisoner, and I heard this - I heard them talking about getting a big supply of petrol. Now what on earth do they want petrol for? They said there would still be plenty left for the automobiles - and then that they wouldn't need the cars any more, anyhow! What on earth do you ...
— The Boy Scout Aviators • George Durston
... in which to get ready. There's Jill calling me. We're going to run over to Barley to whip up the Ashton crowd. D'you think we've enough petrol?" ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... daylight work against aircraft. In those days the planes would come over at altitudes of two thousand feet and less and we had some splendid opportunities to practise on them. We succeeded in bringing one down with his petrol tank on fire, and we turned back a good many more until they began to fly so high that we could not reach them. At night, by using information obtained from our artillery and our own forward observers, we ...
— The Emma Gees • Herbert Wes McBride
... of a shop might be stocked with the loot of the Lost Property Office. There are false teeth, books, golf clubs, pickaxes, snuff-boxes, and ladies' stoles, stuffed fish, and wax flowers, petrol, and motor tyres, boots, and watch-chains, every conceivable kind of portable property that an ...
— Scotland Yard - The methods and organisation of the Metropolitan Police • George Dilnot
... of sardines in oil from Sweden is prohibited. Some resentment is felt at the order by the Germans, who with their customary ingenuity have for some time been importing india-rubber sardines in petrol without detection. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, June 7, 1916 • Various
... invaluable contrivance, "Tommy's Cooker"; and occasionally we get a ration of coke. When times are bad, we live on bully, biscuit, cheese, and water, strongly impregnated with chloride of lime. The water is conveyed to us in petrol-tins—the old familiar friends, Shell and Pratt—hundreds of them. Motorists at home must be feeling the shortage. In normal times we can reckon on plenty of hot, strong tea; possibly some bread; probably an allowance of bacon and jam. And sometimes, ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... be no time being raced and shaken over the flat sand basin, meeting and passing more teams on the way, and twice a petrol and drink station of one board shed, and a man with a jolly Irish face and a gun openly in his belt, to attend to it. We had no breakdowns, and just at sunset got into the one and only street of Moonbeams. But there were no stone ...
— Elizabeth Visits America • Elinor Glyn
... "And the biggest wrecking jobs I ever did before were a couple of petrol dumps and a railroad bridge." He got to his feet along with the lawyer. "No need to call the butler; I'll let ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper |
